National Apprenticeships Week

As part of National Apprenticeships Week I met with city council apprentices earlier this week.

Through our Leicester to Work programme we will be investing in more apprenticeships. Apprenticeships are an excellent way for young people to combine paid work, on-the-job learning and achieve accredited qualifications. As we tackle the youth jobs crisis we need more apprenticeships across the public and private sectors.

I also believe that we need to think now about the role of apprenticeships and the form they take in relation to future skills and education policy. Nick Pearce at ippr has blogged some thoughts on this.

Over the last few months I have been visiting apprenticeship providers and employers to hear about their programmes and what more can be done to develop better pathways for young people into training and work. I would be interested to visit more projects, so please let me know if you would like to suggest an employer or project I should visit.

All of the city council apprentices I met this week spoke positively and enthusiastically about their apprenticeship.

A few links on apprenticeships:

• Leicester Mercury article on my meeting with city council apprentices as part of National Apprenticeship Week.
• My call last October for public sector procurement to help drive apprenticeships, following Ed Miliband's Labour conference speech, covered in the Leicester Mercury.
• New highways apprenticeship scheme at city council which I launched (from Leicester Mercury)
• Blog by MEP Glenis Willmott on our visit to meet rail apprentices.

Meeting rail apprentices with MEP Glenis Willmott.